


Four Years Later

by WitchyBee



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Brief drabble, M/M, Mentions of Steve Carlsberg, Post-Subway, Spoilers for Episode 29
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 15:25:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WitchyBee/pseuds/WitchyBee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After he spent four years trapped on the subway, Cecil reunites with Carlos, who is confused. It hasn't been that long since they saw each other, has it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Years Later

**Author's Note:**

> After listening to the new episode, I couldn't get this idea out of my head. Cecil must have missed Carlos desperately after so long apart.

Cecil rides the subway for years. He doesn’t have a choice; the train just won’t stop. It’s terrifying at first, all of time unraveling before him, and then sort of boring after a while. He understands everything and yet would be unable to explain it. 

Cecil misses Night Vale. And his dear, sweet Carlos. Perhaps he assumed Cecil was dead after so long and started dating someone else. Like Steve Carlsberg!

Finally, the slow eternity comes to an abrupt end. Cecil exits the subway reborn, a profoundly different person from the one who entered those many years ago. But Night Vale is just the same. Dead roaches littering the street, debris from the earthquake...and when he returns to his recording booth, the weather hasn’t even finished yet.

Four years since he left...

Only four minutes for Night Vale.

After wrapping up the broadcast, he leaves the radio station. Carlos is waiting for him outside. Before the scientist even has a chance to speak, Cecil embraces him, holding on tightly as if Carlos is the only real thing in this beautiful and terrible world.

“Oh Carlos...” Cecil whispers against his neck. “My Carlos...I missed you. I didn’t think...I’d ever see you again.”

“What do you mean? We saw each other ysterday.”

“Oh. You...you didn’t hear my show?”

“I did, until about halfway through the weather,” Carlos says. “When the earthquake happened, I wanted to make sure you were okay, so I drove here. I guess I missed the rest of it. Are you okay, Cecil?”

He stares at Carlos. “I got on the subway, like you would have,” Cecil explains. “I saw...so much. And it went on and on for so long, Carlos...I just wanted to go home. I wanted to...” His voice cracks slightly. “You’re not dating Steve Carlsberg, are you?”

“What? No, of course not. He’s a jerk.” He’s not sure if Carlos really believes that, or if he’s merely saying it to make him feel better, but he doesn’t care.

Cecil nods. “Good...that’s good.”

“Now let’s go home.”

Carlos drives them back to his lab, past the burnt shell of the Night Vale Public Library and all the places where subway entrances used to be or never were, which now seem like spaces not quite there, reality scabbing over. The memories are also not quite there, fading with the subway system. Although the cockroaches still remain.

But Carlos is here. Caring and reliable Carlos. He is home and nothing else matters.


End file.
